Posts Tagged ‘Coronavirus’

Recently it became publicly known that systematic violence is perpetrated against refugees in the federal asylum camp in Basel (Switzerland). Obviously this violence is neither an isolated case nor is it limited to the asylum camps in Switzerland.

This violence is systematic and the system has names. Those responsible are internationally represented and operate in many different places. Let’s name them and show them that their actions bear consequences.

The spread of the coronavirus has highlighted the violence of the European migration regime – both at the EU external border as well as in local asylum camps and prisons.

This call wants to continue the intensified struggles against it.

What are federal asylum camps?

Since the spring of 2019, asylum seekers in Switzerland are being administered in so-called federal asylum centres. The accelerated asylum procedues related to the erection of these new structures do not result in fairer procedures for most of the persons affected, but in faster deportation. The federal asylum camps are often geographically isolated. The type of constuction, the location, as well as the rules imposed are reminding of prisons and other instituions that deprive people of their freedom. They are contributing to the racist constructs of the nation state and borders. (more…)

Everyone, everywhere, will be feeling the pinch of lockdown. Nobody has been left untouched and it’s not just the direct effects making their mark.
We are seeing the indirect result too.

You will have noticed that many of the already existing problems in our society are being exacerbated. There have been plenty of reports of increased domestic abuse, mental health crises and financial instability to cite but a few examples.

But what has it all meant for the prisoners?

Well, in some senses it’s business as usual. Much of the freedom you have temporarily lost, never exists here in the first palace. And many of the freedoms you are relying on to cope, are completely beyond our reach. There are no Zoom parties, Netflix binges or streamed concerts here.

There has been an impact though.

All temporary release has stopped. This is generally used to help re-integrate people back to normal life prior to their full release. This is particularly important for those who have spent a long time in prison.
They now face being dumped at the front gate with no time to adjust and no real support.

All education and other activities have stopped. Some have been working towards qualifications (for many for the first time in their life) and are left wondering was it all for nothing. Potentially, people will be put off further self-development as a result.

All in all, probably the best way to describe prison during Covid in mindless agony made more mindless and agonizing. These days, often monotonous and lacking in purpose, are now intolerably so. As a result, there is a real danger of a spike in terms of mental illness and drug addiction. And the situation was already far from okay.

Unless, or until, we can access reliable data on things like suicide and self-harm, we won’t be able to assess the damage. But be under no illusion, there will be damage. Unfortunately, by the time the information becomes available, it may be too late.

Although you still have your modern luxuries to help you cope, some insight into our experiences is possible. Next time you use the internet, your smart phone or relax in your garden with your family, reflect that we don’t have that privilege. For just a second, put yourselves in our shoes.

Giuseppe, Stefania, Duccio, Leonardo, Guido, Elena and Nicole, the seven anarchists arrested on May 13th, 2020, for the «Ritrovo» operation were all released today, May 30th. Four of them are required to stay in the municipality of residence, with return at night from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. The same repressive measure, but without signatures at the barracks, was also maintained for two other persons among the five who had not been arrested on May 13th, as they were only subject to the residence obligation. No restrictions were maintained for all the others.

The crime of fire with the aggravating circumstance of subversion or terrorism, of which only one person was accused, was reworded into «damage followed by fire». The accusation of «subversive association with the purpose of terrorism or subversion of the democratic order» has been dropped. The accusation of «incitement to commit a crime» remains, without the aggravating circumstance of terrorism.

The charge of fire was linked to the incendiary attack of December 16th, 2018, against some telecommunications antennas located in Monte Donato in Bologna, antennas intended for the transmission of national and local television networks. On the site was left the inscription «Turn off the antennas, awaken consciences. Solidarity with the anarchists detained and guarded». The other accusations were (and are) of incitement to delinquency, defacement, soiling and damage.

Following the arrests, the repressive forces had declared that the arrested were accused of having created a subversive-terrorist association having «the objective of affirming and spreading the anarchist-insurrectionalist ideology, as well as instigating, through the diffusion of propaganda material, the commission of acts of violence against the institutions». Furthermore, the public prosecutor’s office of Bologna, with the usual aid of the regime media, had underlined that the precautionary measures assumed a «strategic preventive valence aimed at avoiding that in any further moments of social tension, arising from the particular emergency situation», connected to the coronavirus epidemic, «other moments of a more general anti-State fight campaign could take place».

Revolutionary Greetings Comrades! It is hard to craft a message of Solidarity during this time without acknowledging the suffering and loss of life of so many beautiful humyn beings.

By the time June 11th arrives we will reach over One Hundred Thousand Deaths related to the Corona Virus here in Amerika.

Much of my recent journalism and activism has been centered around Covid-19.

Specifically, I’ve been calling for the release of our Elders. I started this year off with a message of Solidarity. I collaborated with my Soul Mate and Future Wife Nube Brown. We’d Love to see the state of California grant Parole to New Afrikan Freedom Fighter and Principled leader–Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa.

As far as Anarchist prisoners are concerned, I must call your attention to the struggle of our Comrade Xinachtli in the State of Texas. Xinachtli whose Sir name is Alvaro Luna Hernandez will be eligible for Parole very soon.

Inorder to facilitate Xinachtli’s release we must ensure that he has enough Financial Support so that we can retain a Parole Attorney that will zealously advocate for Xinachtli’s Release.

Xinachtli has been subjected to Decades of Racism, Bigotry, and Oppression at the hands of Prison and State Officials in Texas. Xinachtli is a Principled Thinker and Anarchist comrade who has Earned my Respect and Support. This June 11th lets focus on BEING NUMEROUS in order to Free Xinachtli. (more…)

SOLIDARITY WITH PRISONERS ALL OVER THE WORLD
CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF ACTION

The existing health crisis and its management from governments until now, globally, has unmasked the real character of authority, which was hiding itself behind the democratic mask. This oppressive system imposed an ultimate control of life, forbidding everything. Now, all civil liberties have become senseless words. This extreme condition that we live in, reveals that the prison-model is the true capitalistic model of society.

Prison is the most extreme form of bio-politics and extermination. Prisoners are under constant surveillance and control, something that, nowadays is happening to the whole society.

In this period of time, prisoners in Greek prisons are dying, one after another, from minor causes such as rotten teeth etc. Selim Zerolari and Azizel Demiroglou were two prisoners that we were informed about their deaths, this month. Mass media, of course, managed to conceal or distort these news. Furthermore, the state has grabbed the opportunity, due to the curfew, to move the most active prisoners, anarchists and others, into other prisons. Silence in the streets gives more power to the state to repress the voices of the imprisoned people.

Incarceration has always been, and remains, a form of torture and a tool of submission for authority. If we don’t resist to this modern totalitarianism, we will live in this prison-society, which states systematically impose.

Throughout the planet, in the face of the corona virus threat, prisoners stacked in prisons and migrant concentration camps are shouting: We are prisoners, not death row convicts!

Korinthos migrant concentration camp, Greece: 1,200 migrants go on hunger strike, March ‘20Italy, March ‘20: 27 prisons in revolt due to the corona virus, many prisoners killed in the clashesArgentina, April ‘20: Revolt in Concordia prison, guards respond with shootingsPalmasola, Bolivia, May ‘20: 2 prisoners left to die from the corona virus, prisoners revoltChile: Strike mobilization at high security prison in Santiago, May ‘20Thebes prison, Greece: Prisoners revolt after prisoner dies because she was not taken to hospital, April ‘20

MEET ALL PRISONERS DEMANDS
FREEDOM TO ALL WHO ARE IN THE CELLS
PUBLIC HEALTH CARE FOR ALL – PRISONERS AND MIGRANTS
OPEN ALL CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR MIGRANTS
AS LONG AS BORDERS AND PRISONS EXIST NOBODY IS FREE
CALL TO INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH PRISONERS
29-30-31 MAY 2020
Comrades, Solidarians with prisoners’ struggles

Episode number 34 (05/2020) of “B(A)D NEWS – Angry voices from around the world”, a monthly news program from the international network of anarchist and antiauthoritarian radios, consisting of short news segments from different parts of the world, is now online.

In this episode you will hear contributions from:1. Free social radio 1431AM:
• Hunger strike of V. Dimakis
• 1st of May in Greece
• Some words about Grup Yorum, the hunger strikes and the deaths of 3 comrades.2. A-Radio Berlin:
• Interview on the film “Radical Resilience” about political burnout and how to avoid it.3. FrequenzA:
• The audio is from two internationalist, which are based in Rojava at the moment, about their thoughts and analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the society there and why it makes sense to fight the capitalist system worldwide.4. Radio Fragmata:
• Updates on situation in Greece and coronavirus (May Day 2020, New environment destructive policy, police brutality, refugees struggles and fascists attacks, anarchist and revolutionary prisoners situation, mutual aid actions)5. Invisible Radio:
• Voices of people from Moria camp and Last incidents in prisons and camps in Greece

Davide has sent us the following communiqué which we are pleased to publish, the following has been written together with a companion of his from the isolation section of the Pagliarelli prison in Palermo.
Unconditionally we will continue to stand by our comrade’s side!

We are two prisoners who have been thrown into the isolation section “South” of the Pagliarelli prison (in Palermo) without any judicial measure to justify it. We are Carmine Lanzetta (AS3 [detained in “High Surveillance 3” circuit]) from January in total continuous isolation started with the disciplinary isolation for 10 days that still continues, and Davide Delogu, Sardinian anarchist, from February in continuous isolation for reasons of order and security for which we should not do more than 15 days, held hostage with the revenge of total isolation.

Both of us do not bow to the annihilation in which our torturers would have us and fight against the hellish misery of this infamous section to be closed, with the consequent transfer. In half of the section there are the two of us in cells with nothing inside, far from each other. In the other half they put the prisoners in precautionary quarantine and we all use the same shower and the same phone. So we became their guinea pigs. Someone even before us tried to make a complaint to the prosecutor and complain to the magistrate, but these instances are blocked or made to disappear. There is no response to our lawyers’ complaint send via PEC e-mail either; prison administration taking advantage of the emergency of Covid-19 so the lawyers can’t enter the prison to visit us. We are in a section of isolation that had been abolished since 2000 because of the inhumanity embodied there and which is still being put in place. The cells have nothing inside, are deprived of everything: TV, radio, bathroom door, window, rags, brooms and cleaning sticks, hot water with a mini sink always plugged, a walking space that is a cubicle without a bathroom, but there’s no shortage of excrement of any kind, something we don’t dwell on. They inflict all kinds of abuse without being able to subjugate us, however, does not change the antiphon. Those who hold power in this prison are dangerous people, starting with commander Rizzo who feels omnipotent and all the hierarchs who continue with their harassment, like the deputy director who inflicts disciplinary isolation with natural ease, even though he knows in what non-human conditions he leads people. And the director Francesca Vezzana is co-responsible for all this. All this must end and we demand the closure of this section of isolation “South” and our transfer to another prison.

Therefore, from today, May 14th, 2020, we begin the food strike, refusing to go to the cubicles and unworthy walking spaces, trying to beat the bars every day for 20-30 minutes.

Let’s start the strike permanently, for now let’s avoid the hunger and thirst strike in order to keep us strong for when we will lead more incisive forms of struggle, since by limiting ourselves to these we won’t go very far, so that we can face the squadrette [groups of guards specialized in beating and massacre prisoners] that abound here, to get what we want until the end.

The Local Autonomous Network (LAN) is a loose network of individuals and collectives composed of anarchist, anti-authoritarian, and autonomous activists here in the Archipelago of so-called Philippines. Since the early 2000s, the people behind the network have been consistently in contact with another regardless if they are from the southern or northern part of the Archipelago. The network has no formal membership and is presented as an informal organization. The network has its own level of understanding and trust with each other, which comes from the process of the relentless organizing, campaigning and initiating different activities and projects.

We have heard about a report published online from groups abroad about an anti-anarchist crackdown in the Philippines. The report is entitled “The Philippines—The continuing crackdown on anarchists” and was first published by the UK-based Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) and was later copied and distributed onto other international anarchist sites. Most of the people involved in Local Autonomous Network had the same reaction to this report: “this is alarming.” As this is a local matter, we decided to investigate the report and do our own research locally on what was the real situation of the anarchists on the ground.

To give context, it is true that the Duterte regime is an oppressive and repressive government, even more so than with previous presidents in previous regimes. The War on Drugs that Duterte started in 2016 and has been conducted since has killed an estimated 30,000 people; this is a fact. Some of the victims of the Extra-Judicial Killings (EJK) in the War on Drugs have been drug personalities, but hundreds of EJK victims were not even connected to any kind of drug-related issue. Continuous killings and assassinations were also conducted against leftists, dissidents, peasant leaders, community organizers, and other activists. Anarchists in the Philippines were not spared and in 2018 saw Food Not Bombs volunteers murdered and arrested. (See the report: “Four Food Not Bombs Volunteers were Killed in Philippine Drug War and One Volunteer is in Jail”.) (more…)

Revolutionary Greetings Fellow Workers and comrades all over the World!!

“Nothing Lasts.

Relationships end.

Friends die.

Even Capitalism will be history someday.

It’s what we do to re-awaken each other that matters.

Breathing life into self organization, the working actuality of freedom.

That’s the victory, the revolution,

The Truth of Power: That we know how to create lives worth living.

Knowing that such moments, too, won’t last.

—–CINDY MILSTEIN an excerpt from:

CODA: WAKING TO REVOLUTION

More and more people are becoming aware and supporting our Solidarity Actions which seek to support the Prisoner Humyn Rights Struggle. The Momentum is building and what happened on May 7th is only a preview for things to come.

May 7th was the First Action that will usher in our 2020 Prisoner Humyn Rights Movement and Actions—Black August is approaching fast. (more…)

As our comrade Gabriel hasn’t written any official communique so far, these words intend to be precisely a communique/diary and a way of sharing with people and comrades in affinity what he thinks in regard to certain questions.

Gabriel explicitly asked his comrade/partner to select the passages (from letters he sent to her) where he reflects/analyses and/or speculates on interesting issues related to the current situation: «coronavirus» in prison, his judicial situation and the circumstances of his imprisonment.

Gabriel is in good health and spirits and he’s ready for the war he’s expecting in the jails of the Spanish State. In spite of the sentence issued by the Supreme tribunal of Lisbon confirming his consignment to the Spanish State, we still don’t know whether the «authorities» will extradite him without taking into account the «state of emergency» declared following the «Covid-19» «pandemic». As a matter of fact, the «state of emergency» itself (theoretically) is preventing prisoners from being extradited to other countries as long as it lasts.

More information to follow.

Gabriel free!
All free!
Long live anarchy!

–
8th March 2020
Yesterday, as I was listening to (watching) TV, I had already guessed that these scum would leave us without visits and today… well today was a crap day…(more…)

Weeks after our initial incarceration we are finally being released, little by little. Released, we say, because very few stayed indoors of their own accord. Of course some did, but most had no choice. Media hysteria censured of any alternative, fines, police intimidation and beatings are enough to keep even the most rebellious souls locked up. The monster came out of the mist only to retreat again, no one knowing when it might return to rear its ugly head.

Yet, here in southern Europe, we were not abandoned during quarantine. Not forgotten like the dead. Carrefour kept its shelves stocked. If one persisted toilet paper could be found and hoarded. Amazon never let us down, but at $10,000 a second that’s hardly surprising. Orange supplied in times of need, but with society’s upsurge in demand on telecommunications an upgrade from this archaic 4G is essential. In a period of hibernation, as they have chosen to label it, big industry enjoyed a midnight feast while the others were forced to sleep. It would appear that Holzmann’s ‘creative destruction’ is exactly what we’re witnessing: a good old deep clean, forcing the clutter into the corners to make space for the elegant new furniture.

The scientific bombardment shows little sign of slowing up. The facts, figures, graphs, lofty titles and even heftier wallets continue to force upon us a story that must be accepted. Our ideas, experiences and lives are nothing but fake news in a New Normality where the only trustworthy sources are the party-pledges of our favorite periodicals. Everyone’s got an opinion yet to refuse the transcribed plot is to be in support of murder. Numbers skyrocketed, then relaxed, but death continues to rain down, yet all we see on the bleak walk to the shop and back are the faces we once smiled at, averting our gaze.

The life we are now living was drawn from a model that transitioned us from fascism, says the cop, gun pressed gently into the lower back. We’re lucky to have had this time together, says the husband, brushing his wife’s hair across the bruise beneath her eye. Many countries won’t have had the privileges granted to us, announces the director of an NGO, looking out of his window over the Madrid skyline. (more…)